


I'll Never Smile Again

by backtopluto



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Graphic Depictions of Illness, Human AU, M/M, Romance, WWII AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-12-27
Packaged: 2019-05-24 20:07:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14961318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/backtopluto/pseuds/backtopluto
Summary: Ludwig has always done what he thought was right. With every passing day that becomes more and more dangerous until he and his brother watch a single american plane spiral out of the sky and crash into a field. Now, with a badly injured pilot and the constant weight of the third Reich on his back, Ludwig must find a way to keep both Alfred and his family safe all while the pilot becomes more and more charming.





	1. I: Es Kommt Der Tag

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! I'm glad that there is a tiny Gerame community still out there. I could probably be more thorough in my research but the idea struck me and I just had to write. I'd also like to apologize for my shaky German.   
> Pre-warning if you're uncomfortable with blood or serious injury to be wary. Comments and kudos are always much appreciated!

**Chapter I: Es Kommt Der Tag**

The train station was silent as an owl’s wing apart from the breeze running against the sides of the immobile train and empty building. The only living thing Ludwig could see was a sleeping old man slumped on a bench, a copy of  _ Mein Kampf  _ lay open on his legs with the pages ruffling softly in the late winter wind. 

“He is going to freeze to death.” Gilbert whispered, his eyes fixed on the man. The bench was the only thing in the entire train station that was illuminated by a small yellow lantern. 

The night was not ideal for the job. A thin layer of snow coated the ground, and they relied on the flakes beginning to waft downwards to cover their tracks. The cold bit at the exposed parts of Ludwig’s face and he pulled up his scarf further so that only his piercing blue eyes could be seen. 

“We should do it another night.” he said to his brother. They were crouched behind a snow covered bush, hidden in it’s shadow from the off chance that someone in the street looked out and saw them. “When he wakes he will be blamed for our crimes.” 

“You worry to much, Lud. Do you really think the Nazis will suspect a skinny old man with  _ Mein Kampf  _ on his lap?”

Ludwig turned his attention from the train station to his brother, his eyes narrowed. Gilbert was not looking at him, instead he looked to be gazing about for the best places to hang their posters. “Yes, I do.” he said. “They will persecute anyone who dares to  _ think _ poorly of the  _ Fuhrer. _ ” 

Gilbert simply shook his head and grinned widely at his brother. “It’s now or never. Should we go home and tell Dad that we chickened out, couldn't do it? Because of a sleeping man?” 

“He said only to move forward if there were no risks. If that man wakes up the entire resistance could be compromised.” 

Gilbert stood up and Ludwig hissed at him. “You can go home, little brother but I’m pinning these up right under their damn mustaches.” He said this all in a voice that sounded dangerously close to his usual loud tone. 

For a moment all Ludwig could do was watch in horror as his brother moved around the bush and then calmly stepped onto the station platform. He glanced around for a moment before deciding to tack a poster onto the wall just behind the bench over the man’s head. Ludwig felt his breath freeze in his throat as he watched like a trapped deer as Gilbert carefully pinned the poster just above the only threat in the entire station. 

Ludwig stood up and tiptoed onto the platform himself. He passed Gilbert on his way to put up his own poster and heard him mutter, “Thanks for joining.” He let out a deep breath between clenched teeth. 

He pinned up his own poster onto one of the supports that held up the roof of the station. The poster read quite simply:  _ Es kommt der tag! The day will come! _ And displayed a photo of a person’s hand stabbing a black Swastika over a shock of white on top of blood-red background.

It did not take long to empty their hands of posters, Gilbert even put one over a Hitler Youth poster with a satisfied smirk. However, the minutes seemed to stretch like weeks as Ludwig continued to glance nervously over his shoulder or across the station at the sleeping man. He did not so much as stir in his sleep, the pages of the book in his lap ruffled on. 

The two stepped back for a moment to gaze at their work. The image of the stabbed swastika burned all over the station. There was hardly anywhere you could turn without seeing one of the posters. If possible, Gilbert’s smile stretched even further. 

It was then that a particularly strong gust of wind and snow blew across them and Ludwig saw the man stir in his sleep, saw him begin to wake. Ludwig grabbed Gilbert and pulled him into the shadows and they stumbled behind the bush once more, making a terrible slipping noise that brought the man fully from his sleep with a sharp jolt. The book slipped from his knee and landed on the wooden platform with a dull thunk. 

He saw the man sat upwards and fixed his round glasses, his wrinkled face stretched with alarm and suspicion while his eyes scanned for the source of the noise through the branches of the bush. Ludwig felt as though his heart would burst from his chest like a trapped bird. 

“Is anyone there?” The old man called and moved as though to stand up. “Who goes there?” 

Ludwig crouched lower under the bush, he felt sick with fear. He could not help imaging the shame as they were dragged to the SS, then to the Gestapo where they would be tortured. Not even the most loyal of men could survive more than a few days with the Gestapo… 

“Who goes there?” The man called again. He craned his neck around wildly like a bird, and checked behind him several times. It was on the third look that he actually noticed the posters for the first time. 

He gaped up at the poster. His eyes were wide and terrified as dinner plates as he blinked at the stabbed Swastika. His hands began to tremble as he stood up and tore the poster loose from the wall. He stared at it for another minute before glancing quickly around the station again and crumpling the poster, shoving it into his jacket pocket. He reached down and retrieved his book and suitcase then walked off the platform, first at a hurried pace as he kept peeking around and then into an all out run. He slipped and stumbled but caught himself before the shadows swallowed him up. 

Ludwig sighed while Gilbert flopped into the snow. He gasped at the air like he had just finished a run. 

When he had recovered enough he at last said, “That is why we do that when nobody is around.” 

Gilbert did not answer but instead stood up and replied, “We should go. He could’ve gone to the SS.” 

Ludwig certainly hoped that that was not the case and followed Gilbert through their footprints onto a side road that ran along a farm field towards home. Eventually Gilbert started to talk about a funny story that had happened while he was at work, and Ludwig found that they could not face the dark much longer and lit a lantern. Their boots were soon wet with snow. 

They were a fair distance from the town and the station, and it was then that they heard it, a strange howling whine coming from the West that rapidly grew. They turned searching the sky and Gilbert loudly swore. “What the hell is that?” 

The source of the noise showed itself a moment later- a plane came hurtling across the sky close to the ground. He could smell the smoke pouring from it’s wings and tail. The plane flew directly over their heads before it smashed into the ground some hundred meters away.  The falling whine stretched into a high screech before cutting off as the plane skidded across the snowy field and burst into flames. 

Gilbert ran off the road, down the ditch, over the low fence, and across the field. Ludwig quick on his heels still reeling in shock at what he had just seen. The plane reminded him of an aluminum bird and from what he could see of the burning wreckage the plane had crumpled and blackened. 

They ran as fast as their legs could carry them. The lantern made running awkward and it swung madly from his hand as they approached the wreckage, their feet crashing into the frosty snow. 

They paused panting, their breath swirling and slipping away with the falling snow. Their faces were illuminated in the warm glow of the fire. Gilbert was too busy looking at the carcass of the burning plane to notice the stilling figure hardly a meter from the fire. 

Ludwig rushed forward. The man’s jacket was alight with flame and the pilot had gotten one arm out but appeared to have blacked out before he could throw it off himself. The heat sizzled against Ludwig’s skin and through his clothes, the smoke made every breath sting. He grabbed the freed sleeve and wrenched it off the man’s body. He tossed the jacket quickly into the snow before the fire licked his hands. The flames on the coat sputtered and died. 

Gilbert moved at last and yanked the man by the arms away from the plane and dragged him a considerable distance away from the choking smoke and heat. Luckily the snow seemed able to contain the fire to the wreckage and keep it from lighting the field like a match. 

Gilbert dropped the pilot’s arms and looked across at Ludwig, his eyes wide. All Gilbert seemed able to say was, “Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit.” 

The smoking plane was a british Spitfire and Ludwig guessed that it had most likely been accompanying a bomber and had either run out of fuel or been shot down. From what was left of the plane there was no possible way to tell which. 

There was another pause of heavy silence before Ludwig looked back down at the pilot. His bare back was exposed, his shirt having mostly burned away. The left side of the man’s back was a carnage of raised skin splotched with red and white and blacked around the edges. It was painful to look it. It seemed impossible that a man could survive with burns like that. Ludwig bent down quickly to find the man’s pulse. 

He pressed his fingers below his chin and strained… there it was. Faint and quite, yet a beating heart all the same. 

“Still kicking?” Gilbert asked. He had grabbed the man’s singed jacket from the snow. 

He nodded. “We need to get out of here. The SS are probably on their way as we speak.”

Gilbert glanced around at the field and the wall of trees behind them. “Surprised they’re not here yet.” he looked back at the pilot and cringed at the burns charred across his back and shoulders. He turned back to Ludwig. “We cannot leave him.” 

“No. We need to get him out of here as fast as possible, if these burns do not kill him hypothermia will. We need to get him home.” Ludwig explained sternly. It would be treason to their ideals to leave this man here, this brother to their fight. Yet he knew that the chances of keeping this pilot alive were very slim indeed.

“Wait,” Gilbert interjected. “How can he be  _ cold  _ when he’s  _ burned _ ? And what else were we supposed to do, we couldn't put his jacket back over him and have it sticking to him, it could’ve  infected the burn.” 

“Skin retains heat.” Ludwig answered whilst quickly checking the wreckage of burns on the man’s back. “With so much of it- gone,” That hurt to say. “and being exposed to the raw cold he would have lost heat very fast. We cannot dump snow on him.” 

Quietly they both bent down and reached an arm under the pilot and brought him unsteadily to his feet. Immediately the unconscious man slumped into Ludwig’s arms.  

“How are we supposed to carry him? We cannot touch his back.” He said. 

Gilbert looked at the two of them then answered, “One of us will have to fireman carry him.”  

Without much of a warning he set the pilot back onto the ground and handed the lantern to Gilbert, then he carefully hooked his elbows under his armpits and crouched down. He allowed the man to flop over his shoulder then grabbed his right arm and pulled it so the man lay draped over his shoulders and wrapped his left arm over his legs, careful to keep pressure off the burned side. With a grunt Ludwig stood up. 

“Damn Lud, are you Superman too?” Gilbert teased, throwing the jacket back over the pilot. Ludwig glared at him. “You said right now hypothermia is a bigger problems then the burns at the moment. 

“They are both problems.” he replied as they set off into the dense forest beyond the field. They made sure to keep the road within sights and they broke into a jog. It was a thirty minute walk from here to the house and Ludwig hoped they could cut it down to fifteen, maybe less. Gilbert moved in front to watch out for roots and rocks in the dark and light a path. The snow had increased and they hoped it would be enough to cover their tracks at the train station and the crash. 

The three of them lumbered home as fast as a man could while carrying another. Soon the cold air was stinging Ludwig’s lungs just as bad as the smoke but he never slowed down knowing that he carried this man’s life in his hands. 

When they were nearing the house they were forced to leave the cover of the forest and walk on the street where the land had changed from farmland to a cluster of german homes and shops. The first signs of morning were licking across the sky and the snow continued to fall heavily. The hundreds of stars had just faded when Ludwig and Gilbert hurriedly crossed the street and banged on the front door of a small two story square house with a pyramid roof and stone walls. The second story was barely two rooms hidden inside the large roof. 

There was a moment of silence before the door opened and a tall, broad man who greatly resembled an older Ludwig with long hair stood on the other side of the threshold. He ushered the brothers in before daring to ask anything and watched silently as Ludwig carefully dumped the injured pilot onto the couch, being sure to set him on his stomach with his burns facing upwards. He turned back towards his father. His father was glaring dangerously at the two of them, his arms crossed and his feet spread apart.  

“What the hell is this? I asked you to hang posters and you bring back an allied pilot? Two hours later than expected, I was sure it was the SS knocking on my door- I was ready to begin making calls warning them that my idiot sons had exposed the entire restience! Do you have any idea how many people you could have just killed? What the impact of this decision could be?”  

“We couldn't leave him there either. We’re on the same side of the war. It would be treason to our cause to leave him next to that plane!” Gilbert fired back icily. 

“This single man could have cost hundreds of resistance lives! The resistance is at tremendous risk as it is and now my sons smuggle a pilot from right under the nose of the SS into our home!” 

No one spoke for a long moment before their father finally sighed. He rubbed a large hand down his face, and took in the carnage of the pilot’s disfigured backside.

No one spoke for a long moment before their father finally sighed. He rubbed a large hand down his face, and took in the carnage of the pilot’s disfigured backside.

“Gilbert clear the table, Ludwig start boiling water and bandages. I’ll see what we’ve got for ointments and painkillers downstairs.” Folkert glanced back at the pilot and cringed. “He’s going to die if we do not act now.” 

Gilbert and Ludwig hurried to do as was asked and while the water boiled they moved the pilot onto the kitchen table and lay him face down so his burns faced upwards and pulled of the tattered remains of his shirt. They also pulled off his flight cap and Gilbert hung the bomber jacket across the back of the couch . Ludwig could barely look in the direction of the table the sight of the raised and leathery skin that was a collage of black, white, and violent red made his stomach roll.

It was also the first time Ludwig had gotten a proper look at the pilot. He looked young, probably right about the same age as him. He had golden blonde hair darker than Ludwig’s own, although it was caked in ash and flecks of blood and the tips appeared to have been singed. The pilot also had a strong build and nose, and the faintest splatter of freckles across it. His skin, which looked as though it should normally have been bright and glowing- radiating life, was ashy and pale. 

Folkert returned with more bandages, a few painkillers and a jar out of all things, Paraffin. “How’s that water, Ludwig?” 

“Almost done with the first bucket, just waiting for it to cool a bit.” He answered. He had stuck as many bandages into the water as possible to clean them. 

“Good.” His father said and took one of the buckets that had just begun to boil and poured some of it into a bowl, then spooned a generous amount of wax into it then mixed it in. The rest of the water he stuck more bandages in. Soon the entire kitchen was filled with buckets, bowls, and glasses of cooling boiled water. As soon as the first buckets were cool enough Folkert and Ludwig cleaned the wounds generously. Ludwig’s stomach churned worse than ever when pieces of skin had to be pulled off or blebs that were opened. 

They had used an astounding amount of water, and the bandages now all hung up to dry while Gilbert was fanning them violently with thick pieces of cardboard. Once the wounds were cleaned and dried, Folkert gingerly applied a layer of the Paraffin solution over the pilot’s shivering back and added cleaned gauze to the worst areas. He then took a boiled bedsheet that Gilbert had hastily dried and wrapped it around the pilot’s back and torso. 

The process was repeated twice more although with less Paraffin each time until the final bandages were applied and wrapped. At one point the pilot had started to gain consciousness, but he was so delirious that he didn't seem to have any idea as to what was going on. Folkert practically drowned him in a glass of water which the pilot gratefully drank before passing out again. 

“He needs more liquids. I want someone watching him at all times and I want him drinking the moment he wakes up.” 

“ _ Vater _ , our beer supply is really low right now.” Gilbert joked but stopped immediately at the look on his father’s face, the smile slipping from his face. “Right, water. Lot’s of it.” 

Folkert disappeared downstairs and after a small collection of minutes returned with a bundle of blankets. They moved the table closer to the fire and covered the man in blankets, it was the most they could do for his hypothermia. 

“I am going to get more Bandages and Paraffin. Stronger pain killer if I can find it. If anyone asks Gilbert got a bad cut while chopping wood. You do not open this door for anyone under any circumstances until his hypothermia subsides and he is moved to the basement,” he looked down at the quivering tangle of blankets lying on the kitchen table. “and that could be a long time.” 

“This is gonna hurt like a bitch when he wakes up, huh?” Gilbert joked as Ludwig started another wrap. He looked up and glared at him and Gilbert smiled even further. 

“Well,” began Folkert pushing back a strand of his long hair. “You see the redness around the open skin?” Gilbert nodded. “Those are second degree burns. That is what is going to really hurt, he probably can’t even feel the third degree burns because they’ve destroyed all the nerves in that area.” 

“I can get that now.” Gilbert suggested, standing up. 

“No. You’ve done enough and we don’t want to raise even more suspicions by asking around for Morphine.” 

Gilbert sunk back onto the arm of the couch thoroughly disappointed. 

Folkert left and Ludwig pulled out a wooden kitchen chair and sat down facing the pilot’s turned face. He filled a glass from the sink behind him and set it near his head, it thumped dully on the wooden table. 

Gilbert was digging around in the pockets of the bomber jacket across the back of the couch. He pulled out something from the breast pocket and stared at it intently before smiling, “Hey look at this I’ve got his military ID. It’s all in english” Gilbert exclaimed and he squinted to translate it back. “Lieutenant pilot Alfred Jones, aged twenty, US Army Corps. Thought for sure he was British being in a Spitfire and all. You’re a long way from home, buddy.”  

Ludwig stared at the Alfred’s sleeping face. He wondered if he would ever be home again. 


	2. Chapter II: Cooked

**Chapter II: Cooked**

It was a spectacularly tragic moment. When his plane went down.

The entire world was rushing at him. The smoke stung his lungs and every new breath was like a fresh cut. 

One of the trees to the right tore through the windshield, cutting his face and pelting him with shards of glass. The plane wobbled dangerously and dropped, his stomach plunging like he’d missed a step on the stairs.

Alfred unbuckled the safety belt and shook the straps off himself. He forced open the lid of the cockpit, and to his great relief it unlatched like a well oiled machine. Freezing night air danced inside, chasing out the smoke and refreshing his stinging lungs. He briefly wondered if maybe the germans would not be dragging out his body tonight. Then  _ The Apollo  _ dropped even lower. 

At first Alfred felt the plane literally bounce along the ground. He felt it three times and on the third just before it made impact he stuck his body halfway out of the cockpit, ready to jump. 

When  _ The Apollo  _ landed again on the ground he bounced violently, his stomach colliding hard with the opened windshield and it was like being punched hard in the gut. At the same moment the engine burst like a shell and suffocated the entire plane in bright flames. 

Alfred yelled as a wall of fire hit his back. The scream had a raw quality to it, not like something you heard in Hollywood, it was the tangible realness of a limitless, endless pain. 

His vision did not go black but rather white-hot. He was sure his skin was melting from his bones, falling off like snow and ash. The heat was all around like a searing cloud, cooking him. 

  He tumbled to the ground ungracefully from the plane and fell onto his stomach. His vision was beginning to blink in and out like a poor television and the world shifted violently just as the horizon would when you were on a rocking ship. He had never known such torture was possible. 

Almost unconsciously, he started to pull his bomber jacket off. It was as though someone was pressing a scorching skillet to his back but the effort it took to yank his arm free vacuumed what was left of his energy, because the smoke, heat, and pain proved too much for Alfred Jones.  

 

He awoke with a start like a crack of lightning.  

Before he was aware of where he was he felt the pain blistering across his back like nothing he had ever felt before. It was as though someone had taken their nails and dug them under the skin of his back, then tried to rip it off piece by piece. They left a raw and exposed mangled mess and Alfred could still feel each  _ rip  _ as pieces of his back tore off. 

After the immense pain he was cold, he could feel himself shivering like a wet dog in the winter. His mouth felt like cotton and tasted like parchment. He was dizzy and his eyes could not focus on the room in front of him, it felt like he was still on a rocking ship and nothing was real. Other than the pain, of course. The agony was the only thing that anchored him to reality. 

He clenched his eyes shut, trying to ride the waves but they never ceased. It was a small collection of minutes before he could open his eyes and focus. 

In front of him was a glass of water. With clumsy hands he grasped it and tilted it towards him. His sudden movement alerted a figure that had been just beyond the focus of his vision and  two strong hands appeared and held the glass to help him. Alfred’s mind and body were trapped in survival mode and he didn't quite register that he was having to be fed like a baby. But glass after glass came until he could drink no more. Even then the hands forced him to drink. 

When the hands stopped force-feeding him he felt like he’d throw up if he drank anymore. He shut his eyes against the rolling sensations that racked his body and the excruciating pain. Someone was speaking in panicked tones. He just wanted to go back to sleep… 

“Jones! God damnit Jones you cannot fall asleep again!” 

His eyes cracked open and he stared at a very tall man with broad shoulders and pale slicked back hair. He had hard, no-nonsense blue eyes and was frowning at Alfred sternly with a crease between his eyebrows. 

So this is what a german looked like?  

But Alfred closed his eyes again. If this man was an SS officer then he had nothing to give him. 

“Jones! If you fall asleep again you might not wake up! Jones do you understand me?” the SS was shouting and Alfred shut his eyes even tighter. There was a sharp poke near his shoulders and Alfred saw red-hot bursts of fire before his closed eyes, which shot open and he groaned, turning his back away from the angry officer. But the officer had succeeded in keeping him awake.  

“Don't… don’t touch me…you fuckin’ kraut.” he drawled sluggishly as another violent shiver over took him.  

“I am not going to hurt you, Jones. But I need you to stay awake for me.” 

Alfred’s eyes narrowed. The white around his blue eyes had gone pink. “Not going to hurt me? When have the SS ever treated their prisoners according to Geneva? I’d rather die than give you allied plans.”

The officer blinked and understanding dawned like a curtain. He shook his head, “I am not SS. I am a civilian who rescued you from your plane. You have been in a coma-like sleep for a day and half. You need to stay awake.” 

Alfred’s eyebrows creased deeper. “Civilians… Wait! No, no god that’s even worse! You need to turn me in. I’m a danger to you and your family! I could get you guy’s killed, shot, sent to a camp. It’s really kind of you, but I can’t risk your lives for my own-” he was cut off with a violent coughing fit. The man’s frown deepened. 

“You are not going anywhere. We are on the same side, it was the only thing we could do.” The man said. He had taken a seat in an old wooden chair across from Alfred. 

He craned his neck a little to get a better look at him, having to keep his back up was proving awkward already. “You understand the risk, I’ll get you all killed!” Alfred persisted heatedly. “You’ve got to turn me in, say you found me on the side of the road or something, I don’t care.” 

He started to actually try and push himself off the table with the full intention of marching right out of the house and into the street and leaving these kind people alone.

He was there in an instant pushing him down. He was not forceful but he was not exactly gentle either and Alfred hissed, sinking back onto the table. His eyes squeezed shut as intense agony swept across his back once more. 

“I am sorry, but you cannot move, Jones. If you move again you will seriously compromise your chance of recovery.” 

“How do you know my name?” He blurted, turning his head. Alfred saw the man pull out his military ID and flicked it open. He stared at it in stunned horror for a moment. How could he have been such an idiot? 

“Who are you? What’s your name?” he asked after the man had put his ID back into the pocket of his bomber jacket. “Why don’t you support the Nazis?” 

The man hesitated, weighing the ways he could answer, tasting each one before deciding it best to be straightforward and honest. “My name is Ludwig. I am part of one of the many resistance groups working throughout Germany. One of the biggest if I believe, although I am not allowed in on very much. Everything is very secretive and secluded.” 

Alfred was quiet for a moment before blurting, “Wait, you guys aren't fucking commies, right?” 

“Commies?” Ludwig asked leaning back in the wooden chair. 

“Communists. Soviets.” 

“Oh.” He replied thoughtfully. “No. Some members of the group most definitely are, but not us.” 

Alfred nodded slowly. It hurt the burnt areas of his shoulders. “That’s good. You guys aren't complete whack jobs. Hey, thanks for helping me out, you wouldn't have any food? Morphine?” 

“We have pain medicine but nothing as strong as morphine. I can get you food.” He stood up to move around the tiny kitchen. 

“I’ll take whatever you’ve got.” Alfred said, watching Ludwig as far as his position could allow. He could hear him rummaging around in cabinets and shelves then returned with a couple of pills and more water. A few minutes later he had a bowl of warmed stew and bread which he handed to him gingerly and Alfred gratefully took it.

He devoured the food like a starved dog, washing away the parchment taste and cotton feeling in his mouth. He wanted to savor each bite but he was halfway through one before he was already shoving another spoonful into his mouth. A Lot of it missed his mouth from the awkward position he lay in and felt bad when Ludwig had to clean the spots up from the floor. 

 

Hours passed and Ludwig never once left his side, except to use the restroom. The painkillers really didn't make any difference other than keep his headache at bay. He continued to shiver like a man possessed. The burns were a constant source of pain.

Ludwig stoked the fire, got him more water, and talked with him. When Alfred began to doze he would shake his arm gently to pull him back. 

“Sorry.” Alfred would mumble. 

Ludwig sighed. “Do not apologize. Please continue with what you were saying.” 

“Right.” He said dreamily. Then was quiet again. “What was I saying?”

This was the third time this had happened. “You were talking about your cousin.” 

“Ohhh. Yeah, Matty. He’s canadian, but he’d come down and visit us a lot. He’d spend the whole summer in Kansas with us, help around the farm and all that. Our dog loved him-” 

“You had a dog?” Ludwig interrupted suddenly. Alfred turned his head to look at him, ignoring the new pain. 

“Yeah! I bet Ma’s still got her, she’s getting old now. She was a beautiful brown poodle, too smart for her own good. Did you ever have a dog?”  

Ludwig looks away uncomfortably and looks at the darkening light streaming in from the closed curtains. “Yeah. We had a dog. Both Gilbert und I had refused to join the  _ HitlerJugend _ . Some of the boys in it got really mad at this and,” he swallows. Alfred is no longer smiling. “Well, they shot her.” 

“Oh christ, I’m sorry. That was dumb of me. I’ll find those boys and kick ‘im for you.” Alfred replied quickly. 

Ludwig waved him off. “Don’t bother. They are all at the front now and Gilbert gave them a good lesson himself.” 

Alfred was quick to move on and he was midway through a story that was taking him much longer to tell. He kept forgetting things. He’d try to reign in his thoughts and his head. Sometimes it was like he was floating. Other times he felt very far away, like he was experiencing everything on the other side of a thick sheet of glass. 

The story was about the time he and his cousin Matthew had snuck into the school dance when they weren't invited and got into quite a bit of trouble when there was a click of the lock at the front door from behind him. He quieted immediately and Ludwig stood up sharply, the wooden chair screeching against the floor. He saw Ludwig relax when the door opened and two sets of footsteps hurried in with a blast of cold air that caused another a deep shiver, and they closed the door quickly. 

“ _ Wie geht ist er?”  _ asked a loud, scratchy voice. 

“He is awake.” Ludwig replied in english to the question. 

“Really?” exclaimed the voice again in a heavy german accent. “Oh man, about time sleeping beauty!” Alfred craned his neck to find the owner of the voice when the man popped into his field of vision. He looked a bit older than himself with blonde hair so pale it bordered on white. He was easily the palest man Alfred had ever seen. The man was smirked at Alfred and as though he were the most fascinating thing in the world. 

“Gilbert, give him some space.” said a third, deeper voice. The third man came to look at him too and had to bend down to properly meet his eyes. He resembled Ludwig so closely that if it wasn't for the etched wrinkles forming on his face they could’ve been mistaken for twins. He shared Ludwig’s broad shoulders and sharp jawline, the stern eyes and posture. 

“How are you feeling?” The man seemed unsure of the words and his accent was so thick that Alfred had to strain a bit to understand him. Everything felt very strained. 

“I’ve been better.” He answered honestly with a thin smile. In fact, he didn't think he’d ever been worse in his life. But Alfred was a self-proclaimed-optimist and he was going to stick by that. 

The pale man, Gilbert, found this hilariously funny and let out a long peal of laughter. He had to grasp the edge of the table to keep from falling over while the older man glared at Gilbert and Alfred couldn't see Ludwig but he could imagine his disapproving stare. 

“‘Been better.’ Damn Flyboy, I better hope you’ve been better!” He choked and Alfred could hardly understand him. “These crazy ass americans.” 

“You should see some of your pilots.” Alfred said. “Fuckin’ insane.” 

“Gilbert.” said the older man warned stonily and Gilbert’s laughter slowly came to a halt. He waited until he was completely quiet again before he continued, “We are going to have to change your bandages. We have changed them several times since you have… passed out. But, it is very painful when awake.” 

Alfred felt his stomach clench. More pain than he was already in? His mind and body couldn't comprehend that it could be any worse, the awful tearing feeling had never stopped even after the pain killers. He couldn't tell Ludwig that they’d done jack shit, but he guessed that he already knew anyways. 

“Right.” He spoke. The words tumbled hard from his tongue. “Do what you need to do.” 

The older man nodded and reached upwards above Alfred to grab what looked like torn pieces of bedsheets and shirts. He spoke to Ludwig and Gilbert in german and the covers were torn from Alfred’s back, immediately his temperature seemed to plummet ten degrees, a fresh wave of goosebumps rolling across his skin. Gilbert started boiling lots of water above the fireplace and stove top. 

He saw Ludwig setting down some buckets and bowls on the counter. Ludwig bent down and in quiet english asked, “Do you think you can sit up? I will help you.” 

“Yeah, yeah course I can.” Alfred insisted without really thinking about what he had asked and waved off Ludwig’s hands. He braced his hands on the sides of the table and pushed. 

He was wrong. It could get worse. 

Ludwig’s hands are there insistently, pushing him upwards from his chest and shoulders and someone else is guiding him into a sitting position. But Alfred hardly feels it, all he knows is white-hot, searing pain splitting across his back like he is being ripped in two. He yells. Blackness wavers in his vision. 

Ludwig had a glass and forced him to drink water just like when he’d woken up and most of it splashed down his front onto some of the bandages that had been wrapped all the way around. 

He manages to control himself and drink. Ludwig gives him more water, much more than he needs, until Alfred feels like puking and refuses the next glass. Ludwig sets it down on the counter with a thump and asks, “Are you ready?” 

He was panting like a dog. He’d never felt anything so terrible. He’d broken in his arm in two different places, accidentally been hit in the face with a baseball bat, been beaten up, and nothing could compare to this. He gave himself one more steadying breath then looked up, “Yeah, I’m ready.” 

“ _ Fertig _ .” Ludwig said to Gilbert and Folkert. He looked back at Alfred and said in english, “This is going to hurt very badly. Do not be alarmed if you pass out.” 

“You better catch me. Can’t ruin this pretty face.” He jeered with a tired grinned. 

Ludwig frowned. “I will let you fall.” 

The outer bandages were painless. They wound all the way around his body to keep the others stuck to his burns in place. As they got closer and closer to what was left of his melted skin, the pain crescendoed. Alfred’s white grip on the ledge of the table grew harder and harder and soon he had slammed his eyes shut and was struggling to keep his breaths even and deep. 

Ludwig saw his complexion change. Throughout the day it started to look slightly healthier, a little more glowy. A little more alive. But now his skin was ashy and pale as paper, mumbled curses kept sliding from his mouth. 

They worked quickly but carefully. Ludwig started to think that he was torturing Alfred instead of helping him. He cringed at ever groan, yell, and curse that came from him. 

Alfred tried to hold himself above the agony. The pain commanded all of his attention like an orchestra conductor. Someone was twisting his spine. Tearing him apart. It is like a nail bomb exploding on his back. He was cold and hot all at the same time. He was shivering worse than ever. 

Alfred could have thought he heard Ludwig saying, “Hang on, Jones. We’re almost done.” but it came from someplace far away. 

But evidently, Alfred could not in fact hang on, and the black waves consumed him into forgiving bliss. 

 


	3. Chapter III: Static

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd really like to thank everyone who has left Kudos and taken the time to leave comments. They really mean alot and encourage me to work harder on the next chapter and update regularly. That being said, I'm going on a pretty big trip that will last ten days and the first draft of Chapter IV is only partly written, so the next update will be a little bit.   
> Also, I should probably put up another warning, this chapter is'nt explicitly violent but it does mention some torture (via Gestapo) and anti-jewish sentiment in passing, so if you are sensitive to either of those please read carefully!   
> And thank you again for reading and leaving all those comments and Kudos :)

**Chapter III: Static**

He dreamed of a sky so blue it burnt your eyes. A sky so endless he could fly forever and meet nothing but billowing clouds.  

* * *

When he came to again, he was no longer on the kitchen table but in a bed in a darkened room with moonlight drifting sleepily through haphazardly blacked-out windows. He found himself below another pile of blankets, and he had stopped shivering like a leaf in the wind. But his fingers and toes still felt as lifeless and numb as though they’d been submerged in ice water. He wiggled his deadening toes in unfamiliar socks and shifted under the blankets. A new crash of pain broke over him and he stifled his curse inside the pillow.

Alfred evened his breathing until the pain subsided and he let out a long sigh. He peered around the room. There was not much he could make out other than a couple of foggy shapes. It smelt like soap and old flowers. On the bedside table he found two new full glasses of water and downed them both. 

From the kitchen, he could hear a muffled argument in heated German breaking out. Although he could not understand it, he recognized Gilbert’s rough voice rising above the other like a wave.

 “Just because something else happens does not mean we have to stop our other movements and commitments! We’re helping people with those messages. People are relying on us!” 

“Sweet Mary and Joseph, Gilbert! The SS has clouded up this town like the plague, knocking on every door. We have already drawn enough suspicion to ourselves with you and your brother’s,” he paused and grimaced like he’d just swallowed a lemon. “choices.” 

Gilbert stood up, his chair screaming and skidding across the kitchen floor. “You supported all those choices!  _ You  _ were the one who approved all that! Now you’re punishing us for them? Because we  _ helped _ someone? Because we did the right thing?” 

It was the angrist Ludwig had seen either of them in a long time. Gilbert’s anger was hot as burning coals and impsulve as lightning. His father’s anger was cold as smoking ice and it radiated off him like a deadly aura. 

“If you take any more action you are putting everyone in this house under even greater risk than you already have. You will not participate in any resistance movement until this whole mess has cleared.” Folkert explained stonily from his chair while Ludwig put strips of torn sheets into a bucket of boiling water, facing away from both of them. “Do you understand?” 

“I’m not a child anymore!” Gilbert exploded. “I’m twenty-two, you can’t tell me what to do! You have no authority over me. I can do whatever the fuck I want.” 

Their father rose from his chair, his long hair brushing his shirt. “If it concerns the Yank or Ludwig, you most certainly can’t. You can leave this house and throw your entire life into the resistance if you wish, but you will leave. Us. Out. Of. It.” 

Gilbert glared darkly at Folkert, a thousand suns burning in his red eyes and then turned on his heel and yanked his coat so hard from the hanger that it tumbled and fell. Gilbert tugged open the wooden door and slammed it behind him, the thud echoing like thunder through the house. 

A long beat passed before Ludwig spoke, “Father, the curfew.” 

“I know.” Folkert started pulling out the few bottles of beer they had. “Go check on the american, Ludwig. And please, sleep in Gilbert’s bed for me.” Ludwig opened his mouth to say something else and his father shook his head, “I’ll take care of the bandages.” 

He set down a strip of cloth and sighed, running a hand over his face. He glanced back towards the door and the coat hanger on the ground, their coats splayed across the floor like corpses. Ludwig set the hanger and fixed the coats before grabbing more water and some hard, flavorless bread and stepping up the stairs. 

He opened the door to the tiny upstairs bedroom and nearly dropped the water. Alfred was sitting up, the blankets pooled off him on the bed. He was leaning forward, panting like a marathon runner. In the pale moonlight his face shone with sweat. When he saw Ludwig in the doorway he smiled. 

“Was  _ machst du _ ? _ ”  _ Ludwig gasped, and in his shock forgot to switch to english. “You will kill yourself!” 

Alfred only gave him a confused look and Ludwig realized his mistake as he stepped into the room and set the bread on the table. He repeated his words in english while forcing the water at Alfred. 

He opened his mouth to reply but Ludwig cut him off. “Drink that water or you really will kill yourself.” 

“I’m not trying to kill myself.” he countered quickly and set the glass down. He took another steading breath and grinned. “Not after all that work you put in.” 

“Then why are you trying to get up? You could take off more skin.” 

His countenance shifted into one of horror. “That can happen?” 

Ludwig nodded. “That is partly why the dressings hurt so much, Jones.” Alfred cringed. “Why were you trying to get up?” 

He eyed the bread, then looked back towards Ludwig who had taken a seat on the thin bed across from him. Alfred shrugged, then wished he hadn't and hissed sharply. “I heard arguing. I wanted to see what was up.” 

Ludwig blinked at Alfred and sat back. He couldn't believe him. “That is why you put yourself through all that pain? Families argue.” 

“Yep.” Alfred said simply. “That’s pretty much why.”

Ludwig glanced towards the door as though hoping someone could relieve him from the situation. When no knight in shining armor came tromping through he sighed tiredly. “Please just lay back down, Jones.” 

“Will you give me that bread?” 

“I brought it up here for you.” 

“Will you tell me why you were arguing?” 

“I- yes, Jones. Just please lie back down.” His voice was slow and worn-out as old shoes, the english heavy and wrong in his mouth. 

Alfred pulled the mountain of blankets back atop his shivering body and laid down gingerly with only a mild amount of cursing. Then he looked back up at Ludwig, expectantly. 

He wasn't sure how much he should tell Alfred, not so much about the argument but of the resteince. Ludwig knew very little, and even Folkert’s knowledge was limited. He long suspected that Gilbert knew and did more than he let on. He wouldn't be half surprised if Gilbert was tracking german troop movements or planting bombs along the railroad as he spoke. 

At last he said, “Resistance things. Folkert- my father, he wants us to do less. Gilbert disagreed.” 

Alfred raised his eyebrows expectantly, his eyes glued to Ludwig like a child would look at a new teacher. “And?” 

“ _ Und  _ what?” Ludwig shifted on the bed. 

One of Alfred’s arms flopped from the bed and poked out from the blankets. “There is more to it than that, Lud.” 

“Do not call me that.” He frowned and stood up. “I cannot tell you our resistance movements, Jones.” 

“And who am I to tell?” Alfred countered, his smile unwavering. 

Ludwig drew open the door. Due to curfew, all the lights in the house had been put out apart from a lantern in the kitchen. He could see Folkert and an empty beer bottle with papers besides him. 

Who was he to tell? That didn't change the fact that Ludwig was not an easily trusting person.

He stepped out the door. “Good night.” 

He heard the covers shift as Alfred cried out, “Wait! What are you planning- can I help?” He turned, afraid Alfred was moving again but all he saw was the faint impression of Alfred’s face poking out from the blankets. 

“You have done quite enough.” He replied, his voice rising for the first time before he closed the door, muffling Alfred’s protest. He sat in the thin hallway for a moment. 

His brother could be anywhere, doing anything. He could be being captured and dragged off to the Gestapo. Ludwig had heard horror stories hidden in whispers of what the Gestapo did to their prisoners: one woman said she heard they tortured a french men until his face was permanently distorted and his mind would never be the same. They said you could hear bones cracking from rooms away, that the screams of the prisoners were an endless loop. They had no end and they had no climax, just a relentless circle of pain twisting through the hallways and staining the walls. 

No matter if the stories were true there was one undeniable fact: no one ever came back after being dragged to the Gestapo. 

He did not sleep that night- how could he when thoughts of Gilbert’s recklessness and Alfred’s condition plagued his mind like a drug, pushing away sleep as easily as closing a door.  

* * *

A week passes. Alfred’s condition had begun to improve. They managed to keep infection away from the burn, although the only sign of healing was that they had stopped pulling off pieces of dead skin during changings. When they first found him they pulled it off like dandruff. Otherwise, the skin was still just as raw and angry.

They make the choice move him onto a moth-eaten couch in the basement, where after some debate they all agree is the best place they could put him to minimize the risk. 

Two days later he falls ill. 

“I’m fine.” He insists while waving Ludwig off after an intense coughing fit. “Just hot that’s all.” 

“Jones, you’re shivering.” Ludwig tells him with a frown. 

He says, grabbing Ludwig’s hand, showing a surprising amount of strength for someone in his condition. “Yeah! And I’m sweating!” He presses the back of his hand against his forehead, and before Ludwig can recoil he notices how Alfred’s forehead is as hot as a warm sidewalk and covered in a sheen sweat. 

“Odd.” He tugs his hand away and tries to ignore how his surprise molds so quickly into concern. 

“Right?” Alfred says with a smile, like this is some big adventure. “Do ya think I’m dying?” 

His skin had turned ashy and pale as paper again. The freckles that had been beginning to pop up again had nearly disappeared altogether. His eyes are glossy as a surface of a puddle. They bore into Ludwig, and It’s like Alfred is looking at him from a camera, seeing him but not truly seeing him. 

“I hope not. It would be very hard to get rid of the body.” 

Alfred makes a face and shifts from where Ludwig sat on the couch. “Jesus Lud, do you always have to be so dark?” 

He doesn't have to answer because thankfully Gilbert comes leaping down the steps with a newspaper tucked beneath his arms and a bowl full of the paraffin and water solution and a few drops splash onto the stone floor of the cellar. Alfred eyes the newspaper. He used to listen to the BBC every morning, devour every newspaper that came into the base, hunting for as much information on the war as he could. Now, he knows nothing. Before he can even ask to borrow it, he is breaking out into another hard, lung-wrenching coughing fit. 

“Gilbert, I don’t think we can keep him in the basement.” Ludwig says in careful german over Alfred’s coughs. “It’s too cold, it’s killing him.” 

Gilbert sets down the bowl and newspaper. “Why don’t you talk to  _ Papa  _ about that. Because I can’t make any decisions around here. Because Gilbert’s too reckless.” he tells him icily.  

Ludwig lets out a deep breath and hands Alfred a glass of lukewarm water. They had stopped giving him cold water after he complained that it burned his throat too much. He knows that Folkert has a point, Gilbert is far too reckless in just about all of his choices, with very few exceptions. Their last resistance movement had been weeks ago, and so far it had done them well and kept the SS on the other side of town. 

That is to say, Ludwig had no idea what Gilbert did at night. He could bet however that it was nothing safe, and something that probably gave Folkert a great headache. Ignoring curfew in and of itself could be cause for arrest and suspicion. Ever since the americans had joined the war, fighting with a vivacity Ludwig had never seen before, the entire german army had grown more and more on edge and therefore more violent. 

“Gilbert.” Ludwig hissed. 

He rolled his pale eyes dramatically. “Fine, fine. I’ve got one idea that could help him.” 

Ludwig glances at Alfred, who had grabbed Gilbert’s paper and was now scanning the titles and pictures. Naturally, he couldn't understand any of it, but he scowled at gleaming photos of the _Fuhrer_ , drawings of Swastikas raining over London, and a cartoon of a hooked-nose man with dark hair and stolen money leaking from his pockets and a frightened blonde girl in his grasp.  

Gilbert snatched it back from Alfred’s hands. “Don’t read that. It rots your brain.” 

“I wanted news on the war.” he countered defensively. “Because you guys won’t tell me anything.” 

“That is because we do not know anything!” Gilbert said and tore the paper in two. “All we know is complete bullshit, and someone won’t let us tune into the BBC.” 

Alfred perked up. “You guys can get the BBC? Ain’t that illegal?” 

“Please,” Ludwig said tiredly. “Don’t encourage it.” 

Gilbert laughed loudly. “It is abso-fucking-lutely illegal. They’d find a way to kill us twice if they knew all the shit and treason that goes on in here.”

“Can we listen to it?” It is the most life Ludwig had seen from Alfred in a while. 

Gilbert opened his mouth to reply, and he might of just opened up the shabby suitcase hidden underneath the couch if Ludwig hadn't cut him off sharply. “Gilbert, what was your idea that would help Alfred?” 

* * *

Ludwig thought it could work. Folkert was skeptical. Just like he was skeptical about everything that fell out of Gilbert’s mouth, and Gilbert chose mostly to ignore his criticisms. 

They couldn't get all the things they needed for the bath without arousing suspicion at the market, they could not simply go around asking for Iodine without interrogation of some level. Not that you could buy Iodine on ration cards.

In the end they settled for using most of the precious salt they had collected and after washing their small porcelain tub with soap and filling it with boiled water Ludwig was starting to wonder if all this work would even make a scrap of difference. 

Alfred had stared at it at in horror, his glazed eyes wide as saucers. He imagined the salt stinging his singed back, the agony that was sure to rip across it. He turned away from the cloudy water sitting still in the stained bathtub and glanced at his own reflection in the small mirror above the sink. He hardly recognized the thin, ashy man that blinked back. His hair was not the same bright corn-flour color it had been a few weeks before, instead it had been replaced with a thinned and wilted ghost. He took in the man propped up by two others, the dissolving muscles, the dull blue eyes, the bandages stretching around him. He was a faint echo of his former self.  

The cloudy water sitting inanimate in the stained tub hardly looked anymore appealing. They wanted him to put his permanently damaged back, that was seared worse than a burnt steak in a pool of lukewarm saltwater? He considered the insane idea that maybe these guys were nazis and this was some kind of sick experiment. 

“Jones?” Ludwig said from his left, dragging Alfred back and pushing the idea out into space, where he would never think it again. “Are you going to get in?” 

Alfred regarded Ludwig and managed a thin grin. “Yep! Been dreaming of it since the war started, Buddy.” Ludwig narrowed his eyes but Alfred didn't give him a chance to reply before he stepped in. 

The water licked up to his shins. He wiggled his calloused toes, allowed himself a small breath before sinking in. 

It stung, but only for a moment before the warmth took over and encased him like a hug. For the first time in weeks, he wasn't in pain. For the first time after long, stretched out weeks of sorrow he felt alright. He laughed while pulling a hand out of the water and watching it trickle between his fingers. His arm was so pale he could plainly see his blue veins coiling beneath his skin.  

“ _ Da hast du es! _ ” Gilbert beamed. He looks at Folkert, whose expression is carefully trained to be blank as a statue. But Ludwig is almost more relieved than Alfred is. He had yet to see a moment of Alfred not in pain, it had begun to sand out his nerves. 

“Jesus christ, Gilbert.” Alfred laughs. “I’ll give you all my chocolate for the rest of my life. You’re a fucking genius.” 

“Careful not to wet yourself, hotshot.” He says with a leer. 

It was just the moral booster Gilbert needed, and that night instead of going out, Gilbert stays home. He watches the curfew pass like a waxing moon, sees the lights blink out in people’s homes and the blackout blinds drawn down. His wax white hands grip the edge of the window.  

But he turns around and waits until both Folkert and Ludwig have gone to bed. It takes Folkert a while to stop sorting through papers and mumbling to himself before he takes his tired body to bed.

Gilbert creeps down the cold steps to the dregs of the basement, which had become so frigid that he considered going back upstairs and grabbing his ragged brown coat. The winter of 42 had proven to be an unforgiving one. The leaden skies that lay over Europe never lifted. They suspended over the war torn lands like an executioner's boot. When it came down, the clouds opened up their bellies and spilled wind and snow like merciless artillery fire. 

It was no wonder Alfred was sick. Gilbert could see his figure hidden beneath the mountain of blankets, he dozed fitfully. They had dressed him in as many sweaters as they could spare, multiple thick woolen pairs of socks, and they had clapped a knit cap over his head, and still he shivered.   

As silently as he can, he slips his hands beneath the couch and nudges the thick corner of a suitcase, smiling thinly to himself, he slides the heavy suitcase out from beneath the couch where it drags out pieces of dust and trash and scrapes against the grey floor. 

Gilbert carefully pulls it up and clicks it open, only it’s not filled with clothes, or even money or hidden valuables, but a wireless shortwave radio. 

The radio was a smuggled piece of SOE technology that through some miracle had found its way into this basement and into his hands. It contained a long, dirt-color aerial wire that snaked behind a pipe in the basement then through a small hole and up through the rain gutter to the top of the house. The radio was itself was small and the color of charcoal, it was covered in dials and a tuning fork with a small morse machine to match. 

Gilbert scoots away from Alfred, closer to the pipe and settles the uncomfortable earphones over his white hair and flicks the radio on, even just turning the radio on has greatly endangered him. He had created a signal, one the  _ wehrmacht _ could track with their field radios and trigonometry. 

Immediately a chorus of crackling static fills his ears as he reaches into his false pocket, finds the hidden stitching in its side and pulls out a crumpled scrap of parchment. Printed on it in messy ink there’s a series of numbers written. A few bread crumbs still stick to the paper from where the baker had baked the piece of paper into the bread before giving it to Gilbert that morning. He thought of Folkert’s overbearing scowl and his disappointed, skeptical voice whenever he speaks to Gilbert. He feels something curdle in his stomach, and it pushes him to to draw on the tuning fork, searching. 

Searching. 

“What are you doing?” 

Gilbert turns. Ludwig is standing at the base of the stairs, not much more than a silhouette in the ebony basement. Alfred shifts on the couch. “You better not be doing what I think you’re doing.” 

Gilbert ignores him and reaches for the morse machine, tapping out a practice sequence. Through the static he hears Ludwig’s heavy footsteps against the concrete floor and they stop just behind him. “Folkert doesn't want us doing anything, Gil.” 

“That’s your problem, Lud.” 

“ _ Was _ ?” 

Gilbert takes off a single earphone. “That’s your problem, you only ever do what anyone tells you to do.” 

His brother is quiet for a moment then whispers, “Maybe you should learn to listen to others.” 

Gilbert laughed. “Yeah? And if I did? I don’t think Flyboy would be here right now. You’d probably be another gear in the  _ Wehrmacht  _ or  _ Luftwaffe _ , out on the front. We would all be just another pawn for the Nazis.” 

“You’re going to wake Alfred.” Ludwig replies thickly. 

Gilbert turns and looks up at his younger brother. For a moment he still sees the vulnerable, wide-eyed blond boy whom Folkert couldn't even trust to walk outside by himself. The one who nearly got beat up everyday walking home, the one who grew up in a changing Germany. Who would have been the perfect soldier if it wasn't for Folkert. When the parades came marching through Newdon, with the gorgeous brand new planes, and with the gleaming-black mercedes-benz, the blood-red flags, with music, and promises of food and glory for the fatherland. Folkert was the only one who could see through all that stagecraft into the cold, rotten heart of the third reich. 

And he knows that that boy is still there, buried somewhere deep beneath Ludwig’s stony, practical exterior. He wonders what Ludwig could have been. What  _ he  _ could have been. 

Ludwig sighs and sinks down next to Gilbert as he rotates a dial towards the right frequency. He notices the paper clutched in his brother’s hand and takes it from him. He looks at it but can’t read anything in the dark. “Did you go to the bakery again? How can you read this?” 

Gilbert huffs and snatches it back. “You need glasses.” 

He frowns at his brother. “I do not! It is darker than night in here.” 

Gilbert hums something and snaps the earphone back over his ear. “Be quiet for a moment.” He’s finally satisfied with the frequency and taps out the message in quick, rapid morse. Outside, the sky is an ebony black, the stars covered by thick clouds. A single german plane skirts around the outside of the village. An austrian opens his piano in a concert hall filled with soldiers. A girl in occupied Czechoslovakia picks up a newspaper in calloused hands. A polish man seated by a tiny short wave radio with a bag of explosives besides him snags a series of numbers in dits and dahs flying over mountains, cities, towns, and gullies. They are soaring right through Gestapo headquarters, maybe the radio waves even pass right through the  _ Fuhrer.  _

The Pole smiles, and writes the numbers down. 


	4. Chapter IV: Fear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for mentions of torture

**Chapter IV: Fear**

The winter of early 1943 is relentless.The world tiredly dons it’s pale winter colors of ash and bleach-white. Germany looks as though it has been thrown into a shaken snow ~~~~globe. Roofs disappear under heavy sweaters, and the wind brings a shower of biting snow that curls in the air and gnaws on the skin.

Ludwig trudges over the icy cobblestones, buried beneath a worn and tattered coat the color of drained coffee. He’s wrapped a scarf around his nose and neck which wets then freezes with his breath against the biting air. It is the sort of cold that you feel everywhere, that buries itself in your skin like a deep hunger and chills everything- your blood, the interior of your lungs and throat, the core of your thumping heart.  
He passes by rows of muted houses packed side by side in a traditional Bavarian style. The houses look like empty shells, their windows hollowed eyes that gaze across to each other achingly.

Everyone aches.

He finds the house that lays at the end of a row. His home is so unassuming he wonders if anyone would so much as take a second look at it. If anyone would suspect the burnt pilot curled and shivering in its basement.  
The town was split open after Alfred’s plane crashed. The SS searched the woods and the fields, turning the town inside out like a jacket and shaking out its deep pockets. They upturned every rock and twig. They combed every house in the area, banging their gloved fists against doors and molesting every home.  
Ludwig assumes someone was punished for being unable to bring a pilot back, but he cannot find much sympathy in his heart for that Nazi, a man who probably goes to sleep with a full stomach in a house that does not freeze your toes when you climb out of bed.

  
Ludwig steps inside and stomps the snow from his boots, shrugging off his coat. He sets the feeble rations on the kitchen table that he’d collected after a day of standing in freezing ration lines. He can hear Alfred’s terrible, hacking cough wafting from the basement.  
Ludwig discovers that the cellar is at least fifteen degrees colder than the rest of the house as he descends the steps. Alfred looks up at him with a tiredly stubborn grin, his face pale as the winter sky.

  
It’s funny, Ludwig thinks, he was burnt half to death but in the end, it will be the cold that kills him.

  
They had managed to ward infection away from the burn and it was even healing now, new skin gradually and uncertainty growing like the first signs of spring across the ugly wounds. Alfred seemed to be in less pain too, or at least he stopped passing out and joking about some “goddamn morphine” during every dressing, or each time he shifted his position.

  
But they could do little for the hypothermia. Ludwig argued time and time again to take Alfred back up from the basement but Folkert would hear none of it. To take him out, he thought would be too great a risk with the SS still on the prowl, attacking houses at random for the pilot and other undesirables. Ludwig thought it was a bigger risk trapping Alfred in the basement. A lifeless body was much harder for them to take care of then a living one.  
Apparently, neither he nor Gilbert had much of a say in anything anymore and Alfred was left to cope with the hypothermia on his own in the freezing basement.

  
“Hey, Lud,” Alfred says happily, his words stained with exhaustion. “Didya bring the book?”

  
Ludwig sits down in his usual chair and draws a small, pocket-size German dictionary from his pocket. “I could not get an English-to-German dictionary, all of those were burned years ago.”  
Unsurprised, Alfred takes the dictionary from Ludwig. “Hitler has no sense for proper language.” as he cracks open the tiny book. “Thanks though,” a cough, “I was getting sick of listening to Folkert talking to you guys in German about how I was probably going to die.”

Ludwig frowns at him. “You are healing, Alfred.”

  
“I think he wants me to die, ya know?” Alfred continues. “I mean, he won’t let me sleep somewhere warm when it is clearly not the burns we need to be worried about anymore. I feel god-awful.” he can’t talk any louder than a raspy whisper, and coughs after every few sentences.

  
Ludwig had ignorantly thought that Alfred had no idea what they talked about. He’d been content to believe that Alfred only heard words he couldn't comprehend. But he was picking up German faster than Ludwig could have thought. Occasionally, he’d even pipe out a broken German sentence, drenched in his accent and smile proudly up at Ludwig. Who would have to try very hard not to laugh?

  
Who would also have to ignore what that smile did to his heart?

  
“Say, how did you learn English anyway?” Alfred asks flipping the subject like a coin. “You must be the only family in all of Germany that knows English!”

  
“I would not say that.” Ludwig shifts on the chair and ignores another cough. “But yes, we are a rarity. Gilbert and I… we, we only learned because Folkert had to during the Great War. They used his English skills to interrogate prisoners.”

  
Alfred’s eyes go wide and he leans forward against the strain on his back. “He was an interrogator? Did he torture people?”

  
His father resented speaking about the war. He never got so far as to ask such a question. He closed up, shut down whenever the great war was mentioned. He remembers Folkerts face when Britain declared war a couple years back, his fear of his sons being forced through some of the horrors he endured. “I do not know. I hope not. He is not fond of speaking of the War.”

  
Alfred put off by this information lets the grin melts off his face. His blue eyes cloud over again. “Have you heard the stories?” he says carefully. “Of the Gestapo? The shit some of the guys brought back with them.” He flexes his fingers as though to check that they are all still intact.

  
Ludwig purses his lips. Similar thoughts and dreams of Gilbert’s radio messages being tracked with trigonometry and the Gestapo breaking down their door, dragging all four of them out plague his mind. He wonders if they’ll even be given a trial, or if they’ll be shot on the spot. He too had heard stories, of resistance prisoners being locked in refrigerators and having their fingernails ripped out, or having kerosene poured down their throats and swallowing a match once the Gestapo is finished.

  
He has awful, awful dreams about the Gestapo finding Gilbert, and Alfred encased in fire, yelling across too Ludwig, words he can’t hear or understand and by the time he reaches him, Alfred’s disappeared and the fire is gone. The only thing that remains is the charred corpse of his P-51 and a pile of ash. Ludwig would awake like a crack of lightning in a cold sweat. He would toss and turn for the rest of the night, but the images kept reappearing.

  
But here Alfred is, still smiling up at him with that all-American gusto despite his pale skin and glossy eyes and his seared back.

  
He wonders how on Earth they came to be in the company of one another.  
But the real question was- How the Hell would it end?

Over the course of a few days, the temperature plummets even further too dangerously frigid digits, dipping well below freezing. Ludwig swears that it is the coldest he’s ever been. He wears his thickest sweater below his coffee-colored coat and an even lighter layer beneath the sweater. Regardless, the chill sets in, the glacial wind wicking away body heat before his body can hope to retain it.  
The streets are filled with a brittle silence as he hurries briskly home. In one hand Ludwig carries a small toolbox, his job of repairing radios is not much of a job, but it is enough to bring in a little extra money. When someone was in need of a mechanic for their radio, typically it was only a broken Volksempfaenger, a small inexpensive radio owned by nearly everyone in Germany, Ludwig answered.  
To him, the Volksempfaenger was a bore compared to the SOE’s shortwave residing in his basement like a secret. The Volksempfanger could only reach local, carefully selected propaganda stations, where the shortwave could reach all the way to England.

That day, however, there had been an unusual spike in requests for Ludwig to fix up some Volksempfängers, which inevitably meant he’d been out nearly all day in the bitter, gelid winds.  
He takes a sharp left and follows the rows of houses up the hill of his street then back down the other side. The aching houses eye him, and a few kids play a half-hearted game of football on the icy street.

  
He is near to his house when he notices them: a pair of Wehrmacht soldiers, one on each side of the street making their way down the line like inspectors checking pigs fit for slaughter. Ludwig stills, his breath coming in puffs.

  
“What are they doing?” he whispers, not meaning to say it aloud.

  
“They’re checking basements, sir.” Pipes up one of the children playing football.  
“What?” His voice comes out unsteady. He sees Alfred shivering on the coach, the shortwave under him. He sees Gilbert in a Gestapo cellar-

  
“Basements.” the girl explains. “They just checked mine.”

  
Ludwig looks from the girl to the house that one of the soldiers disappeared inside. “What on earth for?”

  
She shrugs. “Something about air raid shelters.”

  
Ludwig thanks the girl hastily, and starts walking at as brisk a pace as he can without flat out running. He barrels inside, where Folkert has already started boiling the water for bandages. Ludwig is surprised to see Gilbert there as well, cleaning his flute with a rag at the kitchen table.

  
“They’re coming.” He says quickly.  
Folkert looks up sharply. “Who?”  
“The Wehrmacht- they’re checking basements.”

  
None of them hesitate or push for more. Gilbert sets his flute down and rushes down the steps to the basement while Folkert starts cleaning up the bandages, shoving them untidily in a cabinet.

Ludwig follows his brother, nearly tripping in his haste to get downstairs.  
“Alfred.” The name rushes off his tongue. Alfred doesn't move beneath his heap of blankets, Ludwig shakes him hard.“Alfred goddammit please get up.”

  
Alfred looks up at him blurrily with half-lidded, glazed eyes. He’s even paler than he was that morning. Ludwig swallows, stripping the blankets off him. He hoists him unsteadily to his feet, frightened by how light he feels compared to when he dragged Alfred out of his plane only a few weeks before. Alfred slouches into him like a weightless doll, mumbling something incoherently in English.

  
“Jesus Christ. What the Hell? Why now? Damn bastards.” Gilbert curses, unhooking the wire leading out of the basement. He tucks it away safely before closing the suitcase.

  
“We need to get him outside.” Folkert commands, coming down the stairs. It’s in moments like these where Ludwig can clearly imagine his father screaming orders on the Western Front, under the rack-tack-tack of gunfire and the boom of grenades.

  
Though, that doesn't mean his orders strictly make sense. “Are you mad?” Ludwig says sharply. He thinks of the number of people who could see Alfred if they just hustled him outside, not to mention the cold on his Hypothermia.

  
“We just need him out of the basement!” Adds Gilbert as he heads up the stairs to hide the shortwave.

  
“What’s going on?” Alfred asks, fighting against the drowsiness and his pounding headache that makes the room tilt. His legs are unsteady, like someone’s first time on a boat.

  
There is a sharp and sudden pounding on the upstairs door, sending prickling spikes of fear up Ludwig’s nerves. Folkert curses and wrestles Alfred from Ludwig’s arms. Subconsciously, Ludwig fights him holding tight enough to Alfred that it probably hurt him a bit, but when his father glares Ludwig regretfully lets him go.

  
“I’ll hide him. You answer the door.”

  
“Vater, please-” Ludwig says, but his protests are hidden by the pounding door. Someone had poor patience. Folkert gives his son one last pointed look, Ludwig sighs, and leaves. On his way up the stairs, his eyes meet Alfred’s, dazed and only barely conscious. He wonders if Alfred can see the alarm in his own.

  
“Gilbert, is the suitcase gone?” he calls as loud as he dares with the Wehrmacht on the other side of the door.

  
“Ja!” his brother yells back from upstairs.

  
Ludwig’s hands shake as he unlocks the front door he takes a deep breath to steady them. He pushes away the nightmares of a Gestapo basement and before he can back down, he yanks open the door like he is yanking open fate instead.

  
On the threshold stands one of the soldiers, his uniform pressed and neat without a spot of snow. His rifle slung over his shoulder like a warning. The man isn’t simply a soldier, but an officer. His heart crumbles. Ludwig wonders if he can hear it.

  
“Guten Abend, Ludwig.”

  
Ah, and now he recognizes the man as well. Herr Schneider, a man who was a number of years older than himself with stress wrinkles etching themselves into his face like the bark of a tree. Long ago, Herr Schneider used to be an accountant, something the Beilschmidts had never needed. But he had been kind and used to give him and Gilbert sweets if they ran past his business on a cold day, much like the one outside.

  
“Guten Abend, Herr Schneider. Is there a problem?”

  
“No, none at all,” he says with a wane smile. “You were always quite the worrier, Ja? Nice to see some things don’t change.”

  
Ludwig nods stiffly.

  
“May I come in?”

  
“Yes, of course.” But Ludwig stands there petrified, his feet bonded to the spot like a statue’s. He was letting in the beast.

  
“Why are you in your jacket?” Herr Schneider pushes past him and removes his cap from his mop of graying brown hair. The water for Alfred’s bandages was still boiling above the fire.

  
“I’m fighting a cold.” Ludwig lies, looking anywhere but at him. A thud sounds from the basement and Herr Schneider’s head snaps towards the noise.

  
“What was that?”

  
“Oh, probably just Gilbert messing around. Can I get you a glass of water? Coffee?”

  
“Nein, nein. I just need to check your basement. It’ll only take a moment.” His stomach falls, his heart beats rapidly against his ribs, like a caged bird trying to escape. “With the damn Allies being as relentless as they have, we have orders to make sure that all civilians have access to an air raid shelter. Because this place wasn't exactly built for war, every street must have at least three basements deep enough to withstand a raid. Now, your basement?”

  
If their basement is chosen, Ludwig doesn't know what will happen. With so many people coming and going, they are sure to find a trace of the pilot in their basement, or even the shortwave. They might not even have time to hide the two before hordes of frantic people are trampling down their steps.

  
Ludwig fights for an idea to delay Herr Schneider any longer, his mind grasping at strings when the basement door creaks open and Folkert steps into the kitchen.

  
“Ah, hallo Herr Schneider.” He says quickly.

  
Herr Schneider frowns. “What were you doing down there, Folkert?”

  
“Cleaning.”

  
“How did you know I was coming?” he asks suspiciously.

  
“Ludwig,” Folkert starts, “whose radio did you fix today?”

  
“Frau Lindner mentioned it.”

  
Herr Schneider’s eyes narrow at Ludwig scrupulously. “You repair radios?” Ludwig nods. “How come you’re not in the Wehrmacht- or the Luftwaffe even? We could use an extra operator.”

  
Before Ludwig can reply, Folkert ushers Herr Schneider down the stairs and into the basement. Folkert flicks on the light and Ludwig follows unsurely behind just as Gilbert comes down from upstairs and puts a rough hand on his shoulder.

“Wait.” he hisses.

  
Ludwig scowls at Gilbert and moves his hand off his shoulder. He steps down the basement stairs before his brother can do anything more to stop him. He hears his brother cursing behind him before he reluctantly follows.  
“Sorry for the mess.” Folkert trails behind Herr Schneider. “The boys still can’t clean up after themselves.”

  
“It’s alright. You wouldn't believe the things we find in people’s basements.” His words send a shiver down his spine, a series of hard chills. Ludwig tightens his grip on the banister, he swallows dryly.

  
Herr Schneider hits the ceiling with a baton and watches as dust flutters down and settles on the floor. He opens up the dusty, cupboard beneath the steps that as far as Ludwig knows, is filled with the same junk like the rest of the basement. Herr Schneider frowns. “Was ist los?”

  
Ludwig’s heart stops and his breath catches in his throat. For a split second, he sees himself at six, trailing Gilbert through the town looking for food to steal, Ludwig incredulous to his brother’s plans. He is twelve and marching with the Hitler Youth. He is fourteen and quits the Youth. He is fifteen and kisses a girl for the first time and finds the entire ordeal slightly nauseating.

  
But then Herr Schneider only pulls out an ancient phonograph cylinder, the brass rusted and brown, and twists it in his hands. “You should take better care of your things, you could’ve made money out of an antique like this.”

  
Ludwig exhales as Herr Schneider closes the door of the cupboard with a thud. Gilbert and Folkert remain carefully neutral, apart from perhaps a slight drop in the tension held in his brother’s eyes.  
Herr Schneider takes his time measuring the walls of the basement and hitting his baton on the roof in various places, occasionally taking notes on a piece of paper. Ludwig stands on the stairs the whole time, eyes flickering about trying to find Alfred, but can’t find a trace of anything. Eventually, Gilbert goes upstairs and a few minutes later Ludwig hears his flute. The quiet notes wafting into the cellar like a spell. Despite the chill of the basement, Ludwig starts sweating uncomfortably.

  
“Thank you for your time, Folkert.” Herr Schneider says ten minutes later, folding up his notepad. “Your basement is completely useless.”

  
“What?”

  
“It’s not deep enough for an air raid shelter. Anyone sitting down here may as well be sitting out on the street.” Ludwig breathes a sigh of relief, the anxiety washing out of him on the notes of the flute.

  
Folkert nods stiffly then leads Herr Schneider back up the stairs. Ludwig steps aside to let him pass but Herr Schneider stops him, grabbing him by the shoulder. His hand isn’t rough but it sends a clear message. 

  
“How old are you, Ludwig?” He asks, his eyes bearing into Ludwig. It makes him feel like a rabbit standing encircled in a trap.

  
Let him take me, he thinks. But leave them the fuck alone.

  
Ludwig straightens. “Seventeen.” he lies.

  
Herr Schneider frowns. “You’re old enough now to sign up. It’s not too late to join.” He glances up the stairs and lowers his voice. “Between you and me, we both know why Gilbert wasn’t able to join. You two aren't’ cut from the same cloth. Your brother’s a right mess. But you-” he racks his eyes up Ludwig and smiles thinly. “You could be a perfect soldier. Tell them you know me. I could get you into the SS or Gestapo if you wanted.”

  
Ludwig doesn't say anything. He feels like he’d been mutilated, torn open and exposed.

  
“Herr Schneider?” Folkert says with an edge, poking his head out from the top of the stairs. “Are you coming?”

  
As the Officer is leaving, the front door propped open against his back as he adjusts the cap atop his head he adds, “Think about it, Ludwig. You’re perfect.” before disappearing into the cold.  
The door shuts heavy behind him, echoing in the quiet room.

Gilbert lowers the flute from his lips. “Thank fucking christ. I never want to go through that fucking shit again.”

  
Even stiff and untouchable Folkert lets out a long breath and racks a hand through his hair. Ludwig sheds his coat before he hurries back down the stairs.  
“Alfred?” He calls, trying to keep the desperation out of his voice. “Alfred, you can come out now.” A faint shuffling comes from beneath the cupboard and Ludwig throws open the door and kneels down. Alfred grins up at him, half buried beneath a crimson swastika flag. The genius of it surprises Ludwig, Herr Schneider would find nothing to be suspicious about a flag. Probably wouldn't even touch it.

  
“Hey, Lud.” Alfred smiles up at him. Ludwig feels the world right.

  
“Are you alright?”

  
“Peachy!” He replies. “My back’s been better, though. Lying on that floor is a bit of a bitch on the burns.”

  
He sighs and helps Alfred shed the soupy red flag and stand up. He stills sinks into Ludwig like a limp doll and he has to carry Alfred to the coach then changes his mind.

  
“That’s it,” he says. “You’re not staying down here another minute.”

  
“What?”

  
Ludwig doesn't say anything as he helps haul Alfred up to the kitchen. The climb leaves Alfred breathless and he leans harder into his side. The warmth envelops Alfred like a blanket.

  
“Ludwig, nein,” Folkert says sharply. “Take him back downstairs.”

  
“No.” He stubbornly rejects in English.

“He’s dying down there, and the one place you thought was safest was not. He’s going upstairs until it warms, or he at least stops looking like death incarnate.” From his spot on the wall, Gilbert grins. Ludwig shifts Alfred then hauls him all the way upstairs. Folkert does nothing to stop them going.  
He drags Alfred to his and Gilbert’s shared room and sets him on his bed with Alfred’s consciousness slipping through his fingers.

  
“I could’ve stayed,” a cough, “in the basement,” Alfred mutters.

  
“No, you couldn't.”

  
“You don’t know that.”

Ludwig frowns. “Yes, I do.”

  
“No, you don’t.”

  
“Alfred, you’re on death's doorsteps.” he helps pry off Alfred’s bandages then curses, a blister had opened up. “You are staying up here until you are not.”

  
Alfred is quiet for a moment. “Hey, Lud?”

  
“Ja?”

  
“Do you want a dog?”

  
Ludwig blinks. “A dog?”

  
“Yeah!”

  
This time it’s Ludwig’s turn to pause. He twists the thought about, it was like Alfred had reached inside his mind and he finds himself slowly nodding. “I’ve always wanted a dog.”

  
Alfred beams. “We should get a dog together. When the war’s over.”

  
Ludwig starts reapplying the fresh bandages. It was difficult to think of a time when the war would end. It seemed impossible that it could ever end. He knew there was no way it could possibly go on forever, one side was sure to exhaust itself eventually. He tries to imagine a life without the Nazis, something just as incomprehensible. He could scarcely remember a time when his life wasn't plagued with uniforms and swastikas. He swallows but instead says, “Alfred, we can’t live together.”

  
“Sure we could.” Alfred insists and coughs. “We could get a little place in Kansas and get a dog. Maybe a plane too. I’ll teach you how to fly if you want. It’s very easy. Or we could move in with Ma. She’d love you a lot, Ludwig. She’d bake a pie, or strudle even, if it helps. You could bring Gilbert along too if you want. Oh, you two could meet Mattie, he’s kind of quiet. You’d get along.”

  
Ludwig’s gut shifts as he rips off a bandage and tucks it in. His heart aches. It is the most he’s heard Alfred say at once in a long time. “Whose Mattie?”

  
“My cousin.” A cough. “He’s from Canada but he comes down a lot. He’s in the Canadian Royal Air Force, actually. He’s a big fancy officer. A lot of people think we’re twins and get us confused, but Mattie’s got longer hair than me.” He gestures loosely at his head. His voice drops, “I wonder if he’s alright. Surely he’s heard that I’ve been shot down, and so has Ma…” He scrunches up his eyebrows and frowns. Ludwig opens his mouth to say something but Alfred cuts him off, “What did the soldier talk to you about?”

  
“Nichts, Alfred.”

  
“What?”

  
“Nothing. Nothing you need to worry about. It’s fine.”

  
Alfred gives him a doubtful look before breaking out in a coughing fit. Ludwig hands him a glass of water and stands up. “I need to take care of some things. Will you be okay here?”

  
Alfred nods and gives a mock salute, “Dandy as a dandelion.”

* * *

 

That night Ludwig pulls up an old mattress and nestles it between his and Gilbert’s bed. The room is an inky black with the blackout curtains pulled taught. Ludwig lies awake for a long while, listening to Alfred’s steady breathing and the occasional feeble cough. Already he’d quit shivering and stopped complaining that his hands felt numb.

  
It’s long past curfew when Gilbert opens the door as quietly and slips into his own bed. Ludwig is silent for a moment before he whispers, “Gilbert?”

  
“Shit, did I wake you?” Gilbert answers.

  
“No.” Ludwig swallows. “Where do you go at night?”

  
Gilbert is quiet for so long Ludwig wonders if he fell asleep, the stillness wrapping itself around them until his brother finally speaks, “Erse.”

  
Ludwig pauses on the name until it finally clicks with a face. “Why?”

  
“She’s a big part of the resistance. She works as a link between the Hungarian resistance and German resistance smuggling Jews out of the countries into France and Switzerland.”

  
“You’re smuggling Jews.” He means it as a question, but it doesn't come out that way. It comes out sharp and accusing.

  
Gilbert sighs. “Well, not me. I’m doing more guerilla work. But Erse helps.”

  
Ludwig is quiet. “Can I help?”

  
“Jesus fucking Christ- Lud no. You’re a damn baby.”

  
“I’m nineteen, Gilbert.”

  
“Yeah, and you’re my little brother.” He hisses. “The radio is enough, Alfred is enough. There’s no fucking way I’m taking you to bomb up a railway. I can’t do that to you.”

  
Ludwig doesn't say anything for a long time. Finally, he cracks the silence, but his voice is so quiet he wonders if Gilbert can even hear him. “Can she get Alfred out?”

  
Gilbert thinks, then nods in the dark. “Yeah. Yeah, she can. I’m already considering something with her, but nothing’s set.”

  
Ludwig’s stomach twists. Neither says anything for so long that Ludwig starts to drift to sleep when suddenly Gilbert opens the silence again. “What the fuck did Herr Schneider talk to you about?”

  
“What are you talking about?”

  
“You’re an awful liar, Lud. Don’t do that shit with me.”

  
He tells Gilbert the same thing he told Alfred. “Nichts.”

His brother shifts. “Bullshit. What did he want?”

  
“Nichts.” He says, harsher and turns his back to Gilbert.

  
“Ludwig.” Gilbert persists. “Don’t do that shit. What happened?” He doesn't say anything, instead, he stays stubbornly quiet, stretching the tension as far as he can like a tightrope. Gilbert tries one more time, “What the fuck happened? Do you need me to beat him up?”

  
“You can’t beat up a Wehrmacht officer.”

  
“Watch.”

  
The silence stretches, heavier and heavier around them until the stress of the day finally closes Ludwig’s eyes. Gilbert tries again, gentler this time, “Was it about the youth?”  
But he can tell by Ludwig’s and Alfred’s synchronized breaths, that his brother’s already gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, I honestly thought I’d abandoned this fic too but then decided not too. I hope this longer chapter makes up for it :)  
> Also sorry about any weird grammar/bad German, my German is kinda awful


	5. Chapter V: Pushed

**Chapter V: Pushed**

The next morning dawns bright and rosy behind the black-out curtains, providing a sharp juxtaposition to the weather Ludwig had become acquainted with.

He awakes not sharply, but slowly. Pieces of the world languidly piecing themselves together like a puzzle. First, the sound of his brother's snores from above him, boisterous as everything else about Gilbert. Next the ache in his back and neck from sleeping on the hard floor all night, he found his head propped at an awkward angle on the pillow and his blond hair fell messily and unkempt across his forehead. The floor smelt faintly of cleaner and old wood.

Ludwig finally allows his eyes to crack open. He is not met with blinding light thanks to the blackout curtains. Faintly, he wonders as to why on Earth he is lying on the floor, especially when his own bed is empty as a drunk bottle.

The name and reason hit him sharply, like an unexpected shove in the gut.

_Alfred._

Like a firecracker, everything floods in with that one name. Yesterday's horrendous string of events- the cold, Alfred crawling out from beneath the soupy red of the Swastika, the Officer, the argument with Folkert. And now Alfred is gone, swept up with the wind.

Ludwig stands up so quickly that the blood rushes to his head like a flood and his legs stumble carelessly to his own bed. Fear pricks at his vision.

The covers atop his bed are skewed and unmade like they'd been wept about in a storm. On the impressed pillow, sits a torn and yellowed sheet from the Dictionary with Alfred's messy, lopsided cursive scratched on over the neatly printed words. The note reads;

_Sorry to leave you all in such a way. I hope you understand, but I’m much to big a risk to keep hidden in your basement. Thank you for everything_

_\- Alfred_

Ludwig does not pause to process the note. He doesn't waste a moment before barreling down the stairs and tossing his coat over his shoulders. He hurriedly tucks the note away into the safety of his pocket and stuffs his feet into his boots. He heads out the door into the bright morning and crisp breeze, his heart alight with panic.

He pushes the emotion down but barely keeps his pace at a clipped run. He restrains the urge to call out Alfred's name in the vain and unsensible possibility that Alfred will hear him. Instead, he turns right, heading naturally West towards France. Towards America.

He has not checked to see if curfew is over, but the sight of a few lifted blackout curtains reassures him. Hardly anyone is on the street because hardly anyone bothers to rouse themselves this early on a Sunday. He pushes his pale bangs out of his face.

At the end of his street, he heads left but finds nothing other than unopened shops and a spilled trashcan. He is unsure of what he is even looking for, what his eyes are scanning for and relies on the thin yet sensible thread that Alfred had not gotten very far. He finds it unlikely that the Alfred he saw yesterday was in any sort of shape to trek across Europe without help.

He turns around at the end of the street and heads back up it on the other side. He passes his own street and continues on. He quiets the voices and fears poking about in his head, ignores his gut coiling itself tighter and tighter like a sickened snake.

He doesn't get terribly far up the street when he spots the crumpled figure passed-out like a drunk on the cobblestones before Herr Thiessen's bar. The back of Alfred's cornflower hair flutters gently in the cool wind under the shadow of the bar owner poking him with the butt of his broom and a scowl around his cigarette.

Ludwig purses his lips and jogs forward. His heart stutters in his chest. He contemplates scooping Alfred up right there and never letting him go. He also considers kicking him for being a reckless, obstreperous idiot.

“This Dummkopf must have drunk himself dry last night.” Herr Thiessen explains when Ludwig approaches. “Funny, I don’t remember seeing him at all, but it was quite the crowd last night.” He glances at Ludwig briefly. “Do you recognize him?”

“He’s my cousin. He’s visiting from Magdeburg. His Mother can’t control him and she was hoping Folkert could do something about his discipline problem.” He tries to ignore Alfred’s shallow breaths. “Sorry for the trouble.”

The bar owner nods. “Damn Prussians, huh? Reminds me of your lunatic brother.” Ludwig laughs unsurely, the sound fake even to himself. Herr Thiessen takes a puff from his cigarette. “Do you need help dragging him home?”

“No, thank you. We’re not so far.”

“Alright, then.”

Ludwig bends down and slings one of Alfred’s arms over his shoulder and hoists him to his feet. Alfred stirs slightly as Ludwig starts down the street, mumbling a distant name beneath his breath.

Ludwig attempts to rouse him as they stumble home. He wonders how many times he will have to drag a passed-out Alfred home on his shoulders.

He tries his name, again and again, adjusts his grip on Alfred harder than strictly needed, and kicks his shin occasionally or jostles his shoulders. It only begins to work when they are nearly home again, and Alfred's dazed blue eyes slowly come to life.

“Ludwig?” he asks

“Ja?”

Alfred is silent for a moment, blinking hard at the morning light against his pounding headache. “You should wear your hair down more often.” cough, “It looks nice,” he adds followed by a clumsy grin.

Ludwig feels his ears heat up. He hides it with a scowl, “What in God’s good name were you thinking?”

He blinks dazedly at the street before his pale face finally twists into realization. Ludwig watches it morph into fear, then guilt and shame like the sky shifting colors. “Shit,” he says.

“Shit is right, Alfred.” Ludwig hisses back, careful to keep his voice down. “What the Hell kind of stunt was that.” He is angry enough that he is unable to keep the curse out of his mouth.

“I was supposed to get further… This wasn’t supposed to happen.” He struggles against Ludwig, trying to escape. “Please let me go for Christ's sake.”

“Nien.”

“I have to go, Ludwig. I can’t be here anymore. I hate having to fucking lean on you like this, to eat off of your food like a charity cause. To sleep in your bed. Then after yesterday! You have to let me leave.”

“Alfred, you can barely walk,” Ludwig tells him as they approach the door. “You could have gotten yourself killed, or tortured.”

“I wouldn't have said anything.”

“Do not underestimate the Gestapo.” He says, prying open the door. But he trusts Alfred. He understands that he wouldn’t have. The Gestapo would have had to give their very best to break him. Still, he adds, “You have no idea what could have happened.”  
Ludwig shuts the door. Neither Gilbert nor Folkert are awake yet, the kitchen empty and quiet. Alfred finally succeeds in pushing Ludwig away and stands shakily on his own. As the seconds pass, he grows more and more grounded.

“I can’t stay here forever.”

Ludwig grits his teeth. Ignoring the statement. “You are too weak to leave. You probably just set back your sickness weeks! You just spent a night on the frozen street. It’s a miracle you’re not dead.” The volume in his voice steadily crescendos with each sentence.  
Alfred glares. “Ludwig, I have to leave. Just let me go. I can’t stay here another fucking minute, they’ll come back soon enough. I can’t put you guys at risk like that again!”

“We put ourselves at risk every day!” Ludwig shouts back. “With the shortwave messages, the bread, and God knows what else Gilbert does every week. You were a risk we chose to take just like all the others.”

But Alfred only stubbornly shakes his head. “No, you were forced to take me.”

“You know that’s not true.”

Alfred stands silent and still for a moment before bursting. He races towards the door and tugs it opens violently. Ludwig is surprised by his strength as he grabs onto Alfred’s arm. The two fight for a moment in the doorway, a flurry of emotions. Alfred shouts incoherently about leaving, and Ludwig yells at him in a tangle of German and English.

In the end, the weeks of bedrest, sickness, and injury win out and Alfred collapses into Ludwig. He still feels painfully light against him.

They sink down to the floor arms wrapped around one another, the crisp morning wind tousling their clothes and hair gently from the empty street. Alfred starts crying. Not hard racking sobs and Ludwig can feel him fighting, trying desperately to keep the tears back. Ludwig only pulls him closer.

“I have to leave, Ludwig.”

“You can’t leave.”

Alfred releases a shaky breath. Ludwig understands what he means by it; I know.

* * *

 

By the time Folkert and Gilbert finally get out of bed, Alfred was back in Ludwig’s like nothing happened at all.

Folkert wears deep purple bags beneath his eyes. A stark contrast to Gilbert, who looks more lively than he had in some time. Like the previous day’s incident was only some adventurous, mildly thrilling excursion. He keeps giving Ludwig knowing looks over their meager breakfast and terrible coffee, but he doesn't speak about it if he heard anything.

None of them have any work on Sundays, and eventually, Ludwig gets tired of Folkert pacing and flipping through the Newspaper and leaves. He stuffs a few Reichsmarks into his coat pocket, with no destination in mind.

He walks for a long time, through the old and new sections of Newdon. He spends some time at a bridge overlooking a thin river, splitting the town in two. The water is dark but calm, barely seen between holes in the ice covering it. They had contemplated throwing Alfred’s flight suit down the river, where it would hopefully wash up many kilometers away. But in the end, Alfred couldn’t part with it, despite the brown looking black and charred, the back completely burnt away.

He tries hard to keep his mind from Alfred, but he keeps returning persistently to his mind.

He recognizes the feeling that has begun to overwhelm him about Alfred. Both subtle yet omnipotent, leaving him breathless every time.

And he knows what he is, despite the countless stubborn nights denying it. Waking up in a sweat after dreams that he wanted to burn from his mind, drenched in guilt. From the lingering glances at men in the street. When he and Gilbert used to be able to afford the cinema, only to watch heavily propagated films, but he found he couldn’t keep his eyes off the male lead.

He rubs a hand over his face. He thought he had come to peace with himself.

But how could he come to peace with- with this?

He wasn’t planning on going, but he finds himself at her house nonetheless.

Erzsebet Hedervary lives on the Western part of the town, and across the river. Her house was small and plain, with a dried-garden covered with snow and a couple of coats tucked away in a shed. Behind her home is a large field before the forest. It takes Ludwig a moment to realize that Alfred’s plane only crashed about a kilometer South.

She’s surprised to find Ludwig standing awkwardly on the other side of the door. But her confusion melts into a friendly smile and she crosses her arms over her chest. “What brought you here?”

“Sorry for coming uninvited,” he says as a way of answer. “I’m in a bit of a predicament.”

She doesn't ask for anything else, just quietly ushers him inside. He hangs up his coat on a hanger and stomps the snow from his boots. It had been quite some time since he’d last visited. The walls had been covered in bright and beautiful Hungarian flowers, filling the walls where pictures did not hang or tapestries weren’t draped. In fact, the only sign at all that a Hungarian lived there at all was the large Kemencék, a traditional Hungarian oven that was enough to heat the whole house.

Before he can ask about the flowers, she answers for him. “They were too bold. To un-german to keep without suspicion, considering everything else that goes on in this house. I couldn't bear to part with my Kemencék, though. They can’t take that too. She pulls out a roll of bread from the oven and sets it on the counter. “Now, what is your predicament? Is it Gilbert again?”

He is tempted to ask about her and Gilbert, delay the inevitable but can’t bring himself to pry rudely. “Are you aware?”

Her smile dwindles. “Is he okay?”

“It’s not about Gilbert,” Ludwig says quickly before pausing. “How long does it take to get papers made?”

The fear in her green eyes subsides and is replaced with curiosity as she puts away the oven mitts. “What do you need papers for? Running away are we?”

Ludwig shakes his head, then whispers quietly, “Do you know? About the pilot?”

She sits down and pulls out a chair at the kitchen table for Ludwig. He sits down carefully as she explains, “Only in passing. Gilbert only mentioned it once, right after it happened. He wanted to know how to treat burns. He honestly expects me to know everything. I finally got the balfasz to tell me why and he hasn’t mentioned it since. It’s probably a smart choice to get papers for him. Admittingly, I’m a little surprised he’s still alive.”

Ludwig laughs in agreement, thinking of that morning’s incident. “He is doing as well as can be expected. His burns have healed but he’s quite sick.”

Erzsebet frowns. “That’s good, I suppose.”

“Can you do the papers?”

“You’re always right to the point, aren’t you?” She pries open a drawer and pulls out a leather notebook and pencil. “You came to the right place. I’m the best forager in this part of Germany. Let’s see we’ll need a fake name, age, occupation, residence. It’s all gotta be fake.”

“That sounds like a lot.”

“It’s not easy, but I’ve found my niche.” She scratches some things down on the paper. “We’ll also need to get a photo of him. I could do it here, but it’s a bit risky dragging him across town so I’ll need to come over.”

And just like that, they work out the details of Alfred’s fake identity. Spinning lies, creating an entirely new person that only shares Alfred’s face.

In the end, they decide to call him Albrecht Schroeder. Albrecht sounds close enough to German that hopefully, he will respond to it. They license him as being officially mute after he had a fit of Pneumonia when he was three, which should hopefully hide the fact that while he can understand German, he does not sound German in the least. They stick to Ludwig’s story that he is a distant cousin by his Mother’s side from Magdeburg and can’t understand the Bavarian dialect so well.

They work out a time to get the pictures done, and Erzsebet explains that she should have it done in a couple of weeks. As Ludwig is leaving she reaches out and stops him, her hand resting lightly on his arm, her face stern and hard. “It might not be such a bad idea to get your own papers, Ludwig. Gilbert already has his own.”

“He does?”

She smiles thinly. “There’s a lot about your brother you don’t know, huh? Make sure to tell him I said, ‘the conductor stops at 2.’”  
“He can’t know that I was here.”

“Fine. Tell him you saw me on his walk. I won’t mention the papers to him if that’s how you feel.”

“Dankeschon.” he finishes buttoning up his jacket and Erzsebet take her hand off of his arm. He reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out the handful of Reichsmarks. “I can get more.”

She pushes the money away. “This is different.”

“But you need the money.” He frowns.

“So do you. Hell, go buy yourself a new coat, that one looks like a bundle of holes stitched together. Buy Alfred something if you must. But I won’t take it.”

Ludwig relents and pushes the money back into his pocket. Her stubbornness reminds him vaguely of his brother, but she would most likely hit him if he told her so, so he keeps the thought to himself. He bids her goodbye, adjusts his gloves and sets off.

He doesn't notice that as he leaves she stands at her window, watching him go with a hand softly pressed against the glass. She mutters a prayer in Hungarian before she takes the notes to the spare bedroom and takes out a ream of paper she was most certainly not supposed to have.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry if any of the characters felt a little ooc. alfred particularly, but a lot of that is simply how sick he is. he’ll start looking better next chapter I promise :)


End file.
